Crowdsourced Finnish Copyright Initiative Meets Signature Requirement 166
First time accepted submitter Koookiemonster writes "The Finnish citizens' initiative site (Finnish/Swedish only) has fulfilled the required amount of signatures for the third initiative since its founding. This means that the Parliament of Finland is required to take the Common Sense in Copyright initiative into processing. The initiative calls for removal of copyright infringement as a crime, reducing violations by private individuals to a misdemeanor."
Torrent Freak notes "This makes Finland the first country in the world in which legislators will vote on a copyright law that was drafted by citizens."
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
The article and summary a bit misleading (Score:5, Informative)
The political process is not as straightforward as the article suggests: It will first be passed on to a committee which will listen for various experts and interested parties, including copyright holders' associations. The committee will then be free to make amendments and changes to the proposal, even though the proposal is already written in a form of law text. After the committee it will probably be subjected to other various committees for review, for example the constitutional committee to check if it is in alignment with the constitution. At the end of this long committee process is the public vote in the Parliament, which is most often just a formality.
Therefore it is not guaranteed at all that the intended changes will pass even if the law will be changed in the parliament.
Re:U.S., cough, international pressure much? (Score:4, Informative)
No need for U.S. or international pressure. Finland is subject of multiple so called "intelectual property" agreements, which require lot of rules in question to be implemented in national law. And you can't overrule it - sorry, that's why they went "IP trade agreements" in first place.
Re:U.S., cough, international pressure much? (Score:5, Informative)
The people who create things want to control how they bring their work to market. You want to control the people who create things. Who's the control freak?
Coming from a staunch conservative like you, this line amuses me. It betrays a complete lack of understanding of what copyright is, where copyright originated, what its purpose is and why people are upset with the current copyright regime.
Here, let me clue you in:
1) Copyright is a law that restricts the ability to make copies of anything human made.
2) Copyright is an evolution of the old royal print charters. Knowledge was known to be power, and the kings of yore realized very quickly they didn't want just anyone printing whatever they wanted.
3) The purpose of copyright is to control the flow of information and goods. Some of it can be good (it gives writers a chance to make a living), some of it can be bad (it gives people the chance to manipulate the flow of knowledge).
4) What people are upset about is that current copyright terms go far beyond benefiting the original creator, have criminal penalties on them and actually make it very difficult to create something without getting lawyers involved. The only reason you don't see every novelist ever being sued by everyone else is because most are penniless.
Now that you know the story, feel free to participate in the discussion.
Re:U.S., cough, international pressure much? (Score:5, Informative)
I believe the authors should get exactly the same type of protection I do on their livelihood. I get paid hourly, once I have completed an hour of work I will never be paid for that same hour again. Why should it be different for someone who makes something copyrighted? I am not able to obtain any future royalties on the ethernet cables I install today, and the end customer gets full control of them to do whatever they want. They will never have to compensate me further if they want to move them, re-terminate them, sell them, or put data signals accross them. Once I've installed them, and they've paid me, we're done and I no longer have any say whatsoever in what they do.
Authors created work for thousands of years before copyright was invented. I don't see them stopping even if copyright were to vanish altogether.
Re:Power to the People (Score:2, Informative)
Finn here.
This is the Litmus test.
The proceeding is somewhat new -- the previous initiatives have regarded the ethics of Fur industry, and gay rights (adoption, etc). Those are still pending.
How this differs, is that this is essentially one of Finland's core industries today, and the leading supporters are 35~ rising, well off, entrepreneurs, IT-professionals, etc. It is not just populist activism, but a real concern that has profound impact in actual business and prosperity of the country.
While this might be thrown aside by our politicians (whose work of late has been mostly harmful instead of beneficial), this will not be shut down with a whimper, but with an uproar -- there are powers behind this draft that won't take no for an answer without a convincing, public argument. On top of that, there is already support in the parliament, as some representatives there are former IT-professionals.
I am eagerly waiting to see where this leads to.
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)